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[viii], (435), 202, [17] pp. (with numerous errors in pagination). Engraved title page and frontispiece; 2 engraved double-page plates (from a total of 27 maps, plans and plates). (Folio) 33x22 cm., period full calf with later rebacking. First Edition.

Of the author, Thomas Fuller, the Dictionary of National Biography offers: "His power of fascinating posthumous as well as contemporary friends is easily explicable. His unfailing playfulness, the exuberant wit, often extravagant, rarely ineffective and always unforced, is combined with a kindliness and simplicity which never fails to charm. If not profound, he is invariably shrewd, sound-hearted, and sensible. He tells a story admirably, as Lamb observed, because with infectious enjoyment. His humour is childlike in its freedom from bitterness. His quick sense of the ridiculous, combined with a calm and cheerful temperament, made fanaticism impossible. It tempered his zeal instead of edging his animosities. Moderation was therefore his favourite virtue, or "the silken chain running through the pearl-string of all the virtues"